I Started Here Sixty-Nine Years ago

I am sitting here wondering how do people keep up blogs and keep them interesting. Well it is true I simply read my kids blogs and their lives are very interesting to me. However, life seems to be going by so quickly for me that I seldom have time to check on life around me.

The voices I hear way too much come from the Media. Are they telling me what is really important? Whatever they are telling me is certainly filtered to what someone else thinks is the truth plus there is so much going on in the world every second it is mind boggling.

Random killings of students in our country; reports from around the world about places where groups of people are being murdered simply because they are from the wrong group or tribe; families in our country being notified their courageous loved ones have been killed or maimed in the Middle East for a war, that is not a war but is a war. Our troops should always and forever be honored --- our leadership --- well, once again we are seldom told the truth and may never know for sure why we started a war in the Middle East. You can check people at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Artesia, New Mexico ---I, from day one, thought it was a bad idea to 'invade' a country without even a pretext of backing a treaty and for WMD's that were not there! I strained meaningful relationships with friends in the church I served as pastor; not a fun thing to do!

From there I think about the politicos who are running for President of the United States. The number of candidates has dwindled. We lost some truth-sayers (they can never get elected).

What we have before us now I am not sure --- if I could pick and chose from various traits and some of their positions I might be able to come up with a meaningful candidate for me. I always respected McCain when he was a maverick but now at 72 years of age he wants to be President and he is no longer that needed maverick, he now is trying to bring together those he in my opinion rightly disagreed with throughout his career and he has embraced the war and economic ways of the current administration. The only changed position he openly admits to is: he has changed his mind about immigration and that the first priority must be to secure the borders. Well, since we will be fighting in the Middle East for 100 years I am not sure we will have the resources to secure any border. Then we have Gov. Huck, please, we had the attempted take over of the Republican Party by the Evangelical Christian Right who still want to tell everyone that their morals and ethics were going to be the ones for everyone, and by golly, let is change the Constitution to guarantee their moral majority agenda. Not a very good idea in my humble opinion.

By the way, I feel I have a right to say what I did in the last paragraph because I am a life-long Republican who does vote and found out that my party was highjacked a long time ago and middle-of-the road Republicans no longer have a place in the party and God-Forbid any liberals say they are Republicans.

Once again, I will end up having to vote for a Democrat because I have had nothing but trouble in the last 8 years with anything this Administration has done. Yes, some very bad things happened to the Bush Administration when it first started but they from those times forward have made one mistake after another at home and abroad. Now we have an America that is disliked and not trusted by many more in the world including many who were our allies. The President however is winning one war, the one on the Middle Class!

I hear a lot of people have become Independents --- well, that has been going on for many years for members of both parties have found themselves voting for the 'best of the lot' and certainly they are not in any one party and extremely hard to find. There are less and less people who are going to vote totally on party lives for there is so very little difference between them -- both parties are flip flopping like, about to be, dead mackerels.

Obama --- well, he will probably get my vote --- not because he is young (but that is not a bad thing) not because he is black (though I think it maybe helpful for the world to see we do accept minorities as leaders) certainly not because Queen Guru Oprah adorned him, for she is a 'legend in her own mind' and has made bad endorsements in the past! I will vote for him because he did see the folly of invading a country and 'saw through' the twisted intelligence reports and voted against going to Iraq. Obama also still speaks passionately about "Hope" and without it we are finished as a people. Hillary, well, she is a very intelligent women but she does not really connect with the middle class though she is sympathetic and she has been part of the Democratic machine too long and she just cannot match her husband's charisma. Oh, by the way, yes, I voted for Clinton both times --- and no, his private life did not bother me for his lifestyle was not very different than some others before him --- our culture simply has turned its interests to and 'Inquirer's" mindset, loving to get into other's private lives and dig up dirt.

Well, I started out 69 years ago in that house above and now retired and can admit I know much less that I ever thought I knew with all those years behind me.

Happy New Year

It is very difficult for me to conceive that it is really is 2008 I sincerely hope the world has a better 2008 than 2007.

We spent New Year's Eve at the home of my brother-in-law Chris Robinson's. Great food and fun for all. There were four young people present, Jeremy, Beth and their friends the Rigsby's. The young people spent good part of time playing 'XBox-360' --- "Halo 3" and "Guitar Hero".

Kelly and I convinced Chris and wife, Pam to allow us to buy Jeremy an 'XBox-Live' account. I cannot lie at 68, almost 69 years old, I have been known to hang around 'XBox-Live'. There may be someone older than I am on 'XBox-Live' but I have not met them, yet! My 'Gametag' is 'Gray Warrior' and sometimes I tell those I met during a game, that unlike them --- I bought my XBox with my 'Social Security'. I also for fun plead for mercy that they just beat up on an old man --- it never works! Even my oldest son TY, and his wife Karna, who also frequent 'XBox-Live', show absolutely no mercy to old Pops.

I am glad to report that my wife Kelly, who ended 2007 by having 'non-invasive' back surgery on her back is doing well. I cheered her on and also really thought the pictures of her two newly spaced vertebrae were very neat --- I think Kelly is about an inch taller which is great for a vertically challenged person! I will say in passing that sometimes they kind of 'soft sell' this kind of surgical procedure. Having to play 'Florence Nightingale' or maybe better put, Mr. Step-and Fetch it for a week, there definitely is some 'discomfort' for over a week however, in my opinion and I think Kelly, would 'now' agree that is has been and will be helpful for it has alleviated the almost daily back pain she has lived with for years.

Well, I have the rest of the week off from my 'part-time' (every day) substitute, teaching at Ruidoso High School. Though retired, I do work because I have to pay for all my 'big-boy' toys.

By the way, no, I have not quite figured out how to blog in an effective, well formed way. But remember it is hard to teach 'an old dog' new tricks.

Difficult Thoughts

I am a retired priest in the Episcopal Church. My wife Kelly and I moved to Ruidoso Downs, New Mexico two years ago. We were very lucky to find a house belonging to a friend and former priest, The Rev. Ann Gaddy. Retirement had been great and I keep busy by substitute teaching at Ruidoso High School. I have worked almost everyday of the school year. My wife Kelly is still employed as a County Manager for New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department.

We had a good Christmas having our youngest son Jake home. I think the best Christmas gift I had this year was getting to know him better in the few days we had together. It is true you are never too old to learn. However, we are were also much blessed prior to Christmas by having the gift of a new grandson Ben and also the news that our oldest son and his wife are expecting their first child. Talk about a lot happening but they are my preamble 'good thoughts'.

My difficult thoughts have been my inability to handle the ongoing problems within the Episcopal Church. Our national church family is being split apart by folks who simply can not get along. The liberals and conservatives simply cannot talk with one another and the solution has been that the conservatives are leaving.

I feel like a child of a divorce being left when I and many others are left by conservatives who simply state, they have to leave. I have felt battered by both sides for I am a moderate, one of those middle of the road kind of people. I basically have been told that being in the middle of the road is simply being yellow, like the yellow stripe on a highway. I have heard it said that being a moderate is no position at all, that we are simply people who are so weak for we cannot make up our minds. It is true the left and right in the Church are very convinced of their various postions and really seem not too interested in their opponent's feelings and both sides sure do not give a damn about us middle of the roaders --- except of course, to win us over to their way of thinking.

I feel the Church has been highjacked. Somehow we have inherited people who simply do not believe we can live together when we have differences. Have we not learned that after more than 600 splits that the Universal Church is not better off by the use of our 'freedom' to split the Body of Christ (The Church). I have decided I need to back off from the institutional church for a time. I need to fully retire from any kind of ministering for all I keep saying, preaching is that there is something very wrong with the Church when truths are expounded by various factions that 180 degrees off from one another -- and they are so sure! Well I am not so sure at all of many things in life and the worse thing I feel is: it is not longer okay to say you do not know know.

Well, these are my difficult thoughts for this day. I know so much less at 68 years old about all the issues. All my years as a clergy and my basic feeling is we have so battered, bent and fractured the Church of God in Christ for our own version of the truths our relationships one with another are being lost. My faith has become like a child's, very simple --- Love God, Love People and Love who you are and who you can Become. The rest has become nothing but issues to argue about and I am done arguing!

Just like I said in Profile I feel young but my picture reveals been around for awhile.